Advanced Materials vs Advanced Functional Materials: Which Journal for Your Paper?

Choose Advanced Materials if your contribution is a new synthesis, characterization method, or materials discovery. Choose Advanced Functional Materials if the same materials work in a real application.

Side-by-side comparison

The biggest difference

Advanced Materials asks: "Is this a new material or a fundamentally new way to make/understand materials?"

Advanced Functional Materials asks: "Does this material do something useful?"

Your 20-page synthesis of a new perovskite with novel crystal structure might be perfect for Advanced Materials. The same perovskite used as a solar cell component probably goes to Advanced Functional Materials. If you've integrated it into a full device and demonstrated performance metrics, Advanced Functional Materials is the target.

Desk rejection triggers

Advanced Materials desk-rejects when:

• The synthesis is incremental variation of published methods
• Characterization is standard (no new insights into material properties)
• The material itself is already known, only application context is new
• Results lack sufficient novelty or scope

Advanced Functional Materials desk-rejects when:

• The functional performance is inferior to published benchmarks with no clear advantage
• The application demonstration is preliminary or incomplete
• The material is not adequately characterized
• The paper doesn't clearly show why this material is better for the stated application

Who should choose Advanced Materials

Submit here if you have:

• A genuinely new material composition or crystal structure
• A novel synthesis route with clear advantages (lower cost, less toxic, scalable, etc.)
• New characterization that reveals unexpected material properties
• Fundamental understanding of why a material behaves as it does
• Work that other materials scientists across subfields will care about

The bar is pure materials science novelty. Application is secondary to the advance itself.

Example: "We synthesized a new thiazole-based polymer with record hole mobility through a novel condensation route." That's Advanced Materials territory. The material matters because the property is new or the method is groundbreaking.

Who should choose Advanced Functional Materials

Submit here if you have:

• A known or standard material applied in a new way
• A material system with demonstrated functional advantage (device metrics, performance data)
• A complete functional story: synthesis, characterization, and proof-of-concept application
• Work showing this material is better than existing options for a specific use case
• Interdisciplinary work bridging materials science and engineering/device applications

The bar is functional proof. The material doesn't need to be new if its application is compelling and well-demonstrated.

Example: "We applied the known perovskite XYZ as a novel photodetector, achieving response time 10× faster than silicon comparators." That's Advanced Functional Materials. The novelty is the functional combination, not the material itself.

The edge case

Papers that could go either way usually land at Advanced Functional Materials because:

1. More editors, broader scope
2. Slightly higher acceptance rate
3. If you're unsure whether your materials novelty is "Advanced Materials enough," submission to AFM first costs less in total timeline

That said, if you believe your work belongs in Advanced Materials, submit there. Editors at both journals understand the distinction and won't hold it against you if your framing is clear and honest.

After desk review

If Advanced Materials desk-rejects your paper with actionable feedback (not a "not novel enough" form letter), you can immediately transfer to Advanced Functional Materials through Wiley's system. The transfer usually takes 3-5 business days, and you keep your submission date for impact factor indexing purposes.

If Advanced Functional Materials rejects you, the usual next step is Small (IF 12.1, broader nano scope) or another field-specific journal. Don't submit directly to Advanced Materials after an AFM rejection unless the comments specifically suggested your contribution was actually about materials novelty.

Bottom line

The answer to "which journal is right for this paper" depends on whether your primary contribution is a new/better material or a new/better application of a material. Both are publishable, both are valuable, but Advanced Materials has a higher bar for material novelty. Advanced Functional Materials is more accommodating of standard materials with exceptional functional performance.

Unsure? Read the last 5 issues of each journal. If your paper looks more like the Advanced Materials covers (pure materials work) than the AFM covers (devices and applications), you have your answer.

Resources

• Advanced Materials scope: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15214095
• Advanced Functional Materials scope: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/16163028
• Wiley manuscript transfer system: supports transfer between affiliated Wiley journals
• JCR 2024 official metrics for both journals